Using ZOOM-events for Scientific Conferences: The ICHEP 2022 Experience

Abstract

The organization of seminars and conferences was strongly influenced by the covid-19 pandemic. In the early period of the pandemic, many events were canceled or held completely online, using video conferencing tools such as ZOOM or MS Teams or Google Meet. Later, thanks to large-scale vaccination and immunization, it was possible to organize again large events in person. Nevertheless it was still necessary to provide online modalities for participants who could not participate in person, having in fact hybrid events with both remote and in person participation. However, in 2022, the global pandemic situation was patchy, with many countries still affected by travel restrictions, making it necessary to provide online modalities for participants who could not participate in-person, having in fact hybrid events with both remote and in-person participation. In this contribution we describe the experience with the ZOOM-Events platform, used for the ICHEP 2022 International Conference on High Energy Physics, held in Bologna in July 2022, with about 1100 participants in-person and 300 connected remotely. We describe in detail how the ZOOM-Events platform was configured for the management of the numerous parallel sessions and the granting of access to participants and how we dealt with the problems that emerged in the organizational phases.